Galleries

Young Writers Poem winners! (1 images)
30 October 2014

Young Writers Competition in the Summer of 2014: Ladybird class pupils’ poems were entered into the Young Writers Poetry Adventures competition before the summer holidays. Thousands of children across the country were entered into this competition. We have received wonderful news, our Setayesh and Mya’s poems were selected amongst a number of children and will be published in a Poetry Adventures book which will be sold in book shops, in addition to this, a copy will be placed in the British Library.

Deaf Pupils Enjoy a Summer of Sport and Fun - With a Little Help from HATS (4 images)
13 October 2014

Pupils at a London school have been getting sporty this summer – thanks to a series of holiday clubs and some specialist help from local firms. Youngsters from the Frank Barnes School for Deaf Children, in Camden, enjoyed a wide range of trips and activities as part of the play scheme, throughout the holiday period. Hosted at Frank Barnes School, the annual summer club offered events designed to boost pupils’ social, emotional and academic development. Free transport to and from the play scheme was provided by local specialised transport service, Health and Transport Services (HATS) Group – offering flexible transportation and ensured pupils travelled safely. The complimentary provision was an extension of HATS long-standing relationship with Frank Barnes School – one of three specialist schools in Greater London that focuses on bilingual education for Deaf children. They provide day-to-day transportation to Frank Barnes pupils during term time and teachers say having the service available during holiday time helped them plan more trips – and to travel further afield – than usual. Jodie Griffiths, Higher Level Teaching Assistant and Play Leader, from Frank Barnes School thanked HATS for the gesture. She said: “Having the minibuses really made it so much easier and safer for both staff and children, and helped a great deal with little legs! “We were able to spend more time at a place purely because of the fantastic, flexible drivers who took us from A to Z safely.” “Parents were impressed that we had a bus considering everyone had a budget to work from.” Speaking about the service, Henry Bilinski, CEO of HATS Group, added: “We prioritise our corporate social responsibility, and local schools such as Frank Barnes are always at the heart of our business. “HATS strives to not only provide excellent customer service to those who rely on our specialist transport, but also to get to know them by finding ways to help reduce costs and support

We hosted our very popular annual BSL Recognition Day on Tuesday 18th March 2014. During the day, we had a variety of activities; BSL Puzzles, A-Z BSL Bucket Race, Fun Hands Activity and a BSL Assault Course! We celebrated the 11th year of the recognition of BSL, British Sign Language with a BSL Birthday Cake! James Wolfe, Blanche Nevile and Warren Primary Schools joined us here at Frank Barnes for the day.

We supported Sports Relief on Friday 21st March 2014. Our Pupils took part in physical activities all afternoon; throwing, jumping, relay race and Boccia. We purchased Sports Relief wristbands from Sainsbury’s and one of our classes sold all of the wristbands in school for £1 along with some soft footballs for an additional £1. • Wristbands bought and sold: £30 • Soft Footballs: £9 • Additional Donations: £17.50 Total Raised: £56.50

On Wednesday 19th March 2014, DCAL organisers, Manjula Patrick, Mischa Cooke and Heather Payne hosted a BSL Bake Off. The event was aimed at staff/students in their division of Psychology and Language Science but they also invited various colleagues from the faculty as well as the wider UCL community. On the day, there were around 19 various cake entries ranging from chocolate nutty biscuits to lemon celebration cakes! Judges were: Catherine Drew – Leader of Bilingual Practice, Frank Barnes School for Deaf Children Liz White – Institute of Child Health Finance Office (and baker extraordinaire!) Rex Knight – UCL Vice-Provost (Operations) and Disability Champion The groupings for the judges were: Catherine – categories: Celebration cakes and Biscuits – accompanied by Manjula Liz – categories: Celebration cakes and cupcakes/muffins – accompanied by Heather Rex – categories: Biscuits and cupcakes/muffins – accompanied by Mischa The judges had information on judging the cakes: – Entries are within three categories (celebration cakes, cupcakes/muffins (batch of 12) and biscuits (batch of 12)) and the theme was British Sign Language (BSL). – Entries were judged on taste, quality of bake and creative interpretation of the BSL theme. Biscuits, cupcakes/muffins were also be judged on consistency within the batch (even size and shape). – There were 4 prizes to award; one for each category and an overall ‘star baker’ prize. After judging and awards took place, the organisers at DCAL opened up the cake sales and raised an amazing £180.80 for Friends of Frank Barnes.

London Children’s Ballet came to Frank Barnes to perform ‘The Secret Garden’ on Tuesday 25th February at 11am for the whole school. They performed the ballet beautifully, our children and staff were enthralled for the entire performance. As soon as the performance ended after 45 minutes, the London Children’s Ballet stayed on and did a small workshop with our children answering questions, trying on costumes and attempting their own ballet moves!

Beetle Class enjoyed a trip to the Museum of Childhood as part of their History topic on Toys from the Past. They started off doing an Elephant Safari looking for all sorts of different elephant toys – big, small, old, soft, hard, wood, fabric, etc. and ticked a picture of each of them off on a list once they spotted them in the display cabinets. Then the children enjoyed a handling session of different elephant toys which they loved. They described each elephant toy and picked out their favourite one! They also enjoyed some of the museum’s hands-on, interactive toys and games.